Does Being Non-Judgmental Promote Immorality and Divorce?
Answer: Not when people love others as they love themselves
Most people naturally desire to have a lifelong, monogamous relationship when it comes to marriage.
For things to work out well with God, however, marriage should not
decrease our ability to love others. Discovering the right partner,
therefore, is not just about finding someone we can love for a lifetime.
It's also about finding someone who helps us love others.
Most of us are married before we really get a feel for whether our spouses
will always love us, much less help us love others. Jealously and
insecurity can create insurmountable obstacles. Moreover, religion
often plays a more important role after marriage and burdening love with the letter
of the law can completely destroy one's ability to follow Christ.
Staying
married to one person for life can be wonderful; however, remaining
faithful to someone who diminishes our ability to help others serves
no good purpose to God. Jesus said God's kingdom is like someone
who hires laborers and gives others the responsibility to oversee
his wealth.1 At the end of the day, he looks for the increase:
abundant fruit born out of much love for others. Who would employ
laborers who promise to faithfully love their spouses but cannot
labor? Marriage, therefore, creates challenges beyond just requiring
much of a person's time and financial resources.
Married
couples probably rarely ever see it this way. That's because most
of us have been taught that serving God largely means obeying commandments,
which – like nine of the Ten Commandments – begin with
Thou shalt not. The problem is that God will judge us
based on what we do, not what we don't do. Loving others is profitable
to God because it is the only way we can bear fruit abundantly.
No one is fruitful when their ability to demonstrate compassion, forgiveness,
and mercy is constrained by the letter of the law. Doing the will of God
when it runs counter to religious traditions is
extremely difficult. Nevertheless, Jesus taught that it is vital
to do so. 2
When
Nathan spoke to David about taking Uriah's wife, he did not quote
the law: Thou shall not commit adultery .3 He also did not
lecture the king over immorality for having many wives and lovers.
Instead, he talked about a man with many sheep who stole a poor
man's only lamb. The poor man, Nathan said, loved the little lamb
from the time he was a child. In other words, the prophet was pointing
out that David had disobeyed the Royal Law: Love thy
neighbor as thyself. Anything can be used as an excuse to
serve oneself, whether to judge not, or to cleave
to one another in marriage. Notwithstanding, we serve God
simply by treating others, especially our fellow laborers, as we
would want to be treated if we were in their shoes. Against this
there is no commandment.
1
Jn Chapter 15;
Mt 20:1-16; Lk 19:12-27
2
Mk 2:18-22; Mt
12:1-14; Jn Chapter 15
3
2Sa 12:1-10
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